


We Spark And Fade, They Die By Threes

by dear_monday



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampires, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a hunter on his tail. He hasn't seen him yet, but he'd know that scent anywhere – and so it begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Spark And Fade, They Die By Threes

There's a hunter after him. He hasn't seen him yet, but he'd know that scent anywhere – leather and sweat and steel, fear and grease and the coppery tang of blood. They're all the same, wearing it like a badge of honour without realising how weak it makes them, how vulnerable. _Arrogant_. Hunters see the space between good and evil as a schism, a void, not as it actually  _is_ – a no man's land in beautiful, shifting shades of grey. No stormy iron hues or pale gull's-feather tints, just remorseless black and white.  
   
He smiles just a little, showing a slightly pointed canine. Hunters are always fun. So he finds a boy with wide eyes and spindly bones and a tracery of royal blue veins shining through his skin, and he makes sure to leave a mess.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
He waits for his hunter. Waits and _waits_ , and feels the anticipation gnawing at him, day after day. This is not what he'd expected; hunters don't waste time circling, they strike. Cat and mouse loses its shine too fast these days and he gets impatient, reckless; leaves patterns and trails for anyone who might be looking.  
   
He wonders as he charms a dead-eyed girl with secrets of her own whether his hunter will recognise him, will see him for what he is. He wonders as her heartbeat falters and her gasping, liquid breaths slow whether he'll pause to argue his moral code or whether he'll get angry and pull out a stake, like all the others. Whether he could be turned; whether he could take it or whether the guilt would eat him alive. He tucks a strand of the dead girl's hair behind her ear and wipes a thread of her blood from the corner of his mouth, and feels the anticipation like an ache that runs right to his core.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
The waiting holds him down, makes him both restless and unable to do anything. He walks for miles and miles through darkened streets until he's utterly, gloriously lost and nothing exists anymore but the rhythm of his feet on the sidewalk. He feeds more than he needs to, using it to dull the itch of frustrated expectation. He leaves the city ( _a_ city, they're all so similar that he doesn't keep track anymore) and walks by the side of the highway into the vastness of an empty, nameless state. He walks for days, feeling the sun like a solid thing against his skin, feeling the rough tarmac wearing through the soles of his shoes. He wonders whether his hunter is still tracking him, two steps behind. He hopes he is, imagines him sleeping a beat-up pickup truck or charming a ride out of a stranger.  
   
It seems he'll never quite shed who he used to be. His feet carry him into a grimy roadhouse that smells of booze and sweat and stale cigarette smoke. His tongue flicks out to taste the air as he starts to thread his way between the warm bodies thronging around the bar. He's hungry, listening to their heartbeats and picking out his favourite. He's about to approach a boy with glazed eyes and a lazy sway in his hips, but instead – instead there's a girl, sitting in the corner, alone, and watching. _I know you_ , her face says, _and I am not afraid_.  
   
She is chocolate-skinned, warm and pliable under his hands, and there's some kind of grief in the line of her shoulders and the curve of her mouth. When he leads her to a cheap motel room and closes the door behind them, she pins him against the thin wall, tangling strong hands in his hair and slipping her tongue into his mouth in a fierce kiss. He complies reluctantly; he has a rule about not fucking what he eats, but when his teeth graze the curve between her neck and her shoulder and she murmurs a broken encouragement, arching into his touch, he realises this is what she wanted all along.  
   
"You don't care if you survive or not," he whispers, and she shakes her head, so he takes her at her word.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
He kneels in front of her body for a while afterwards, wondering how she knew, what it was she was escaping from. He wishes he'd asked. Her blood is stark and vivid, sliding down the white plaster wall, settling in the cheap carpet, running down from her throat and over the sweep of her collarbones. He's not a messy eater, and she didn't struggle. He reaches out and brushes a finger over her eyelids, closing her eyes. She looks so peaceful.  
   
It's then that he hears the footsteps. Outside the motel, a world away – plenty of time. Because they're _his_ , his hunter's, fast and frantic, and the familiar presence laps against him like waves. He ducks out of the room, slipping down to the far end of the corridor and waiting. He times it perfectly, sprinting back towards the room and reaching it just before the hunter, crouching by the girl's side and making a great show of checking for a pulse.  
   
A voice behind him curses, rough and pained, and _his_. This is what he's been waiting for, _finally_. "Is she breathing? I'll – I'll call nine-one-one," it says, shaking and unsteady because it's obviously much too late. "You, just – fuck, I don't know, CPR or something?"  
   
He turns slowly, looking up the hunter as his mouth curls into a bloody, knowing smile. The hunter swears again – shocked, this time, and makes for the door, but he's not fast enough.  
   
"Oh, come _on_. You've been following me for months. Aren't you even going to tell me your name? It'd be awful rude of you." He looks up coyly from under his eyelashes, licking his lips obscenely.  
   
Hunters are always fun.  
   
"Frank," hisses the hunter, all hate and fury, eyes blazing and jaw set. "I'm Frank, you fucking _animal_ , and I'm going to fucking _kill_ you."  
   
"Frank, huh? It suits you. You can call me–"  
   
"Stop! I don't want your fucking name!" he shouts, covering his ears. They all say that; they don't like to be reminded what they're dealing with, don't like the way it would be so easy for them to accidentally start empathising.  
   
"Gerard," he finishes, calmly, lighting a smoke. "And if you were going to kill me, you'd have done it already."   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
It's not difficult, in the end. They have the same circular argument he's had with every other hunter before. Frank talks about protecting the innocent from evil, meaning anything humans can't explain. Gerard talks about all the things humans do to each other with no supernatural help at all, and isn't _that_ evil too, and who's protecting you from each other? Frank doesn't want to listen and goes for Gerard's heart with a splintered chair leg, and even though it wouldn't have worked, Gerard is forced to knock him out and tie him to the bed.  
   
Frank comes round quickly and spits venom and yanks at the restraints, and Gerard watches him, fascinated. Such an angry little thing, and so beautiful, alive with pain and full of fire. Eventually, Frank goes still, and Gerard unties him on the condition of his good behaviour.  
   
Frank tries to kill him again, but Gerard would have been disappointed if he hadn't. This hunter is something new, something interesting. He ties Frank down again and listens to him rage and snarl as he starts to clean up. When he finishes, he pulls up a chair by the bed, and sits and waits. Eventually, Frank's voice grows hoarse and his writhing becomes slow and half-hearted, and after some time he stops altogether, lying still and quiet. His cheeks are flushed with anger and his hair sticks to his forehead, his chest rising and falling quickly. _Beautiful_ , Gerard catches himself thinking, and it's as if Frank hears.  
   
"Well? Aren't you gonna say anything, fucker? Gonna kill me, or are you too chicken? Fuck, just my fucking luck that you're some sicko who likes to play with his food. Fucking _do it_ already, if you're gonna."  
   
Gerard smiles slightly, amused. "I'm not gonna kill you. Not now, anyway."  
   
Frank goes silent again, working out what that means for him, where his chances are going to be. Gerard keeps watching, his head tilted to one side.  
   
"Come with me," he says, on a sudden impulse.  
   
Frank laughs and shakes his head, brittle and cynical. "You're fucking crazy," he says.  
   
"Am I? Think about it. You're here now. You'll be a suspect too. I've got out of worse things, but if _you_ get caught? You're dead and you know it. And it isn't like you've got anyone or anywhere to go back to." Hunters never do; they hate to become _attached_.  
   
"That's not the fucking _point_ , you bastard. I'm a _hunter_. You're a – "  
   
He hesitates, anger fighting with years of training, of being forbidden to say it out loud. Gerard wonders what he'd say; there are as many names for what he is as there are hunters. His favourite so far is nightwalker. He knows he'd like Frank's better.  
   
Frank scoffs and sneers and promises that he'll kill Gerard eventually, but he says yes.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
True to his word, Frank doesn't give up, and takes every opportunity to ambush Gerard, who doesn't mind all that much. Frank is bright and extraordinary and Gerard doesn't think he'll ever lose interest in him. At first, as they walk the highway together, Frank refuses to say a word, until Gerard snaps at him that he might as well get used to it, as they're going to be spending a lot of time together. So Frank starts talking about how ridiculous this is, about how it's a fucking stupid thing for him to do, about how he blames Gerard completely for this whole mess.  
   
Gerard looks at him, and says, "Then why don't you leave?"  
   
Frank doesn't answer.  
   
Gerard isn't surprised. His kind have that effect on humans.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
Three days later, an over-zealous small-town cop chases them out into the desert to charge Frank with stealing from the general store. As he catches up, Frank turns to Gerard with wide, terrified eyes that say, _I can't do this, this isn't right, isn't me_. Gerard's possessive streak ignites like kerosene and he breaks the cop's neck.  
   
That evening, they're attacked by another like Gerard who doesn't take kindly to having her territory invaded. She smiles beguilingly at Gerard, drags him into the bar's back room, shuts the door behind them, and goes for his neck. She's stronger than him and Gerard knows he doesn't stand a chance, but then there's Frank, standing over them both with a makeshift stake in his hand. The stake doesn't do any more than slow her down – silly hunters, relying on fairytales – but it's enough for Gerard to get the upper hand.  
   
As they leave, he asks Frank why, and Frank shrugs uneasily and mutters something about one good turn.  
   
He doesn't try to kill Gerard again after that, either.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
After another week, when Gerard has to feed again, Frank stands guard outside without having to be asked. When Gerard opens the door to let him in afterwards, he sees Frank's eyes linger hungrily on the smear of blood on his lower lip. It's the most perfect thrill Gerard could imagine, and it's going to his head.  
   
It's always the hunters who fall the hardest.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
Later that night, they stop at a liquor store. Gerard charms the cashier and they leave with enough booze to fill a cabinet. They take it back to another cheap motel and share it between them, alive with the spoils of war and the fierce joy of the kill. The room is warm and Gerard watches the play of the shadows on Frank's face, reaching out to brush his thumb over the perfect curve of Frank's mouth.  
   
Frank's pupils get big and dark and his lips part, his breath hitching. He slurs two words that could be a question or an invitation or maybe a defiance, and this time Gerard is more than willing.  
   
For all the things he's called Gerard, Frank's the one who kisses like an animal, all teeth and tongue, aggressive and dominant. They fuck on a thin mattress and scratchy sheets, Frank's knees hooked over Gerard's shoulders and his filthy, needy moans the only sound in the room. It's rough and artless, raw, all sweat and desperation. Afterwards, Gerard presses a chaste kiss to Frank's forehead. It means, _look. Look, we're not so different after all, are we?_  
   
Frank turns his head away.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
Frank is quiet and troubled the next day. Gerard runs a cool, pale hand through Frank's tangled hair, concerned. Frank still won't meet his eyes.  
   
"You hate me, don't you?" he asks, softly.  
   
For the first time that day, Frank looks up at him and Gerard could swear that's Frank's soul he can see burning behind his eyes. "No," he says. "That's what scares me."  
   
Gerard had been expecting Frank to be guilty. He hadn't counted on the uneasy twist in his own stomach. He brushes it away and ghosts his lips over Frank's.  
   
"You don't have to, you know," he murmurs into Frank's ear, feeling him shudder with fear or revolt or something else entirely. "Stop fighting, little toy soldier. You might surprise yourself."   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
But Frank won't stop, or maybe he can't.  
   
"They're _people_ ," he says unhappily the next time, as he wipes a runnel of blood off Gerard's cheek. "People with, with lives, and dreams, and families."  
   
Gerard shrugs. "I had that, once. Wanted to be an artist, you know? I don't miss it much. It's not so hard, giving it up."  
   
Frank doesn't answer that, just slumps against the wall. A dry, choked sob forces its way out of his throat. "I don't know what happened to me," he says, his voice shaking. "I used to – used to _know_ what the right thing to do was. And now I've – fucking _helped_ you. I'm as bad as you are."  
   
Gerard drops to his knees and gathers him up in his arms, holding him and murmuring in his ear until Frank stops shaking. Frank tilts his head up and kisses Gerard, deep and messy, rocking his hips against him. Gerard is still bloody-mouthed; Frank doesn't seem to care anymore.  
   
"What is it? Tell me what you want, sweetheart," says Gerard softly, wrapping one hand around the back of Frank's neck and the other around his back, pulling him close.  
   
"Forget," mumbles Frank, burying his face in Gerard's shoulder. "Make me forget."  
   
Gerard couldn't refuse even if he wanted to.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
"I _should_ hate you," says Frank conversationally, as they share their last cigarette on the edge of the highway in the gathering dusk. "You've fucked up everything I believed."  
   
"I didn't. I just made you look at things for yourself, make your own judgements. That's all it was."  
   
Frank takes a deep drag and passes it back with a hard, humourless laugh. "That's worse."  
   
"Is it?"  
   
Frank sighs. "No. That's what _makes_ it worse."  
   
Gerard wraps an arm around him and feels him shivering. "You know how to stop it hurting," he says. It isn't a question.  
   
"Yeah," replies Frank dully. "Give in."   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
This time, Frank does. Maybe it's because he's curious, maybe he's just sick of the pain, but it leaves Gerard breathless.  
   
He's half-wild, incandescent, with a wolf's smile and a lion's heart, brave and just cruel enough. Everything Gerard hadn't even dared to hope for. Stripped of his scruples, he's feral and dangerous and glorious, encouraging Gerard to be braver than he's ever been. He helps Gerard choose, helps him get them away from the crowds – hangs off their shoulders and pours dirty, whispered promises into their ears.  
   
Frank continues to play lookout for him, until one day when he slips through the door behind Gerard. The boy (mousey-haired and too young) looks questioningly at Gerard, but Gerard shakes his head and skims his fingers over the boy's throat.  
   
"That's just Frank," he says. "You don't have to worry about him."  
   
So Frank stays, and watches, and Gerard's usual buzz is amplified so much it shakes his bones. He feels Frank's eyes on him as the boy goes limp against the wall, and looks round. Frank's eyes are wide and hungry and Gerard takes a step towards him, slipping a hand under his shirt. The instant he touches him, Frank drags in a ragged gasp, and when Gerard pulls him over to the bed he goes without a fight.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
It's that night that Gerard first begins to think about turning him. He toys with the idea, lying on the bed with Frank sprawled across him, warm and soft and boneless. He knows that if he asks, Frank might not be able to refuse, whether he wants to or not, so he's got to treat it as if it's his choice to make. But Frank's darkness is as blinding as his light, and Gerard's mind spins in circles and circles as he lies there for hours without even getting close to the right answer.  
   
He asks the next morning, just as Frank is waking up, before his loyalty can kick in. Frank freezes, not even breathing, and Gerard is surprised by how much this matters to him.  
   
"Fuck," he says, eventually. "I – _fuck_. You can't just fucking spring that shit on me. Give me some time to think about it."  
   
He disentangles his limbs from Gerard's and climbs off the bed, his jaw set and his eyes blazing.  
   
"It looks like a fucking slaughterhouse in here," he adds, voice harsh, as he pushes the bathroom door open. "Better get it cleaned up."   
    
 

+    +    + 

    


  
   
They don't speak of it again for almost a month. They carry on like before, blowing through small towns and leaving again as soon as they can, drinking and fucking and struggling not to lose themselves completely in each other.  
   
"It wouldn't _matter_ anymore," says Frank one day, as they sit on opposite sides of a greasy, plastic table in a greasy, plastic diner.  
   
"What wouldn't?"  
   
"If you did – you know. Like, two months ago, I wouldn't have recognised myself. You've made me into a completely fucking different person as it is."  
   
"Is that a bad thing?"  
   
"I don't know. You tell me."  
   
" _I_ don't think so," says Gerard fiercely, reaching out and grabbing one of Frank's hot, sticky hands. "You have no idea, do you? You're amazing. Everywhere we go, they stare at us because they're so jealous they can hardly stand it."  
   
He isn't wrong. They _do_ stare, drawn to the scent of sex and danger and adventure, by the red-light glamour of the two of them.  
   
"Right. So, would it even change anything?"  
   
Gerard still isn't sure what he means.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    
   
It's another week before Frank makes his decision. They're in a real hotel, for a change. Gerard isn't hungry, isn't biting, and they're on the bed with the sheets tangled around them as Frank basks in his afterglow and Gerard traces Frank's tattoos with his fingertips.  
   
"I want you to do it," announces Frank, out of the blue. Gerard stops, pulling his hand away. He wants Frank to choose this for himself.  
   
"You sure, babe?"  
   
"As sure as I'm ever gonna be. Now do it before I change my mind, motherfucker," he growls, and Gerard feels a surge of something white hot and all-engulfing as he notices the faint tremor in Frank's voice.  
   
"Alright, alright. Come here, then. No – look, like this – "  
   
He pulls Frank into his lap and runs a finger over this throat, searching for the vein. Frank's heartbeat is deafening in the small room and Gerard can feel the excitement humming under his skin.  
   
"Is it going to hurt?" asks Frank, suddenly sounding disarmingly childlike.  
   
"Yeah." Gerard exhales slowly, trying to get himself under control. Frank's trust is extraordinary, intoxicating. "Yeah, it's gonna hurt like a bitch. But I'm here, alright? I've got you. You're safe."  
   
Frank nods wordlessly and tips his head back, exposing his neck. Gerard bites and Frank starts screaming.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    
   
At first, it seems like Frank was right – it isn't that different at all. Everything's the same, but slightly better, sharper. The colours are brighter, everything tastes sweeter, Frank is more amazing than he ever was.  
   
So they carry on. There's a whirlpool of feeling in Gerard's chest and he embraces it, falls into it headlong and willing, because everything is incredible and he feels like nothing could ever hurt him.   
    
 

+    +    +

 

    
   
It couldn't last; of course it couldn't.  
   
It happens in degrees, day by day, in infinitesimally tiny shifts of thought. Frank slowly starts to pull away from Gerard, withdrawing into himself, so subtly that Gerard hardly notices at first.  
   
When he first realises it's happening, it feels like dying. Frank's become his constant, his dogstar, and he's slowly losing him, little by little. He wants to ask him if he's ok, wants to take him away and keep Frank to himself for ever and ever. But his mouth won't form the words, and every halfhearted smile and apathetic shrug cuts a little deeper than the last.   
    
 

+    +    + 

    
   
It's worse than he could ever have imagined.  
   
"Frankie?"  
   
"Mmm?"  
   
"What's the matter?"  
   
Frank scowls and throws Gerard's hand off his shoulder. Another hotel room, another night. There's a single corpse in the corner with a bite on either side of its neck. They'd shared.  
   
" _Nothing_ , alright?" snaps Frank. "Just – fucking leave it, Gerard."  
   
"No! I will _not_ just fucking leave it! Jesus, Frank, you won't even fucking _talk_ to me, how am I supposed to help?!"  
   
"Because you fucking _can't!_ " Frank is shouting now, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "Because it's _all your fault!_ "  
   
Gerard jerks back like he's been slapped. "Frank," he says softly, "If – if you tell me, I swear to _God_ , I will do whatever I fucking can _– anything_ –to make it better." He reaches out to push Frank's hair off his face, to touch, something to make him feel like he can keep hold of him, but Frank turns away and his hand drops. Frank draws a deep, unsteady breath, fighting it back, fighting to hold it together.  
   
"I'm in hell here," he murmurs, ducking his head and looking at the ground. "I feel – like I'm stuck like this, forever. Like I can't get back or, or get out. This isn't what I wanted, I thought it'd be... fuck, I don't know, just not like _this._ " He looks up, bold and fierce and broken. "I want out."  
   
The world tilts and Gerard feels like his chest is being crushed, like he's being torn apart.  
   
"You promised," says Frank, quiet but so fucking sure. "You said you'd help me."  
   
"But – " Gerard chokes out, the dark howling in his ears and threatening to drag him under. "But you _can't_. Isn't there anything else, any other way? I fucking _need_ you. I, I–"  
   
"You can say it," whispers Frank, eyes old and sad. "It won't change my mind."  
   
Gerard says it anyway and Frank looks at him like Gerard's the one breaking _his_ heart. Gerard swallows around the lump in his throat, feeling it all slipping out of his hands.  
   
He nods, just the once, biting his tongue and feeling his eyes stinging. It's impossibly cruel that he was allowed this, allowed to taste it, allowed to get so irrevocably hooked but isn't allowed to keep it. It's  _unfair_ and he wants to shout or break things, but – Frank. "I – I will. I promised. But not – fuck, just not today. Please, can we – just one more night?"  
   
Frank nods back, accepting. "Just tonight," he agrees. Gerard opens his arms and Frank falls into them gratefully. "Fuck, thank you, should have known you'd, you'd..."  
   
His words break down into dry, rough sobs and Gerard holds him tight, wishing he didn't have to ever let go and crying into Frank's hair. He thinks about all the things he wants to say ( _never forget you, you're so fucking amazing, no one else like you_ ) but Frank knows, Gerard knows he does, so he holds on and doesn't let go.  
   
They stay like that, just holding on, clinging to each other with desperate, grasping fingers. When their eyes are red and puffy and their voices are cracked and hoarse, they draw apart a little. Gerard kisses Frank, closing his eyes in case Frank sees the grief there and it destroys him too.  
   
"Just tonight?" he asks. Frank's smile is real and raw and so fucking bittersweet it's like dying all over again, more painful than the first time he was bitten. Frank squeezes his hand – _stay strong, remember what you promised me._  
   
"Just tonight."  


End file.
